tives so grossly inaccurate that the editor of the Intelligencer, "after correcting his account of the affair by notes taken at the time," published it to refute the misrepresentations of "A Citizen." Mr. John Randolph thereupon published a card in the Enquirer, denouncing the report of the Intelligencer, and especially the note implying that he had authorized Mr. Garnett to make an explanation. Mr. T. M. Randolph followed, in a card stigmatizing Mr. John Randolph's publication as “incorrect," "unjust," "haughty," and "extravagant," declaring that his own pacific conduct was induced by the belief that Mr. Garnett sought "accommodation;" that a challenge, the thing expected, would have ended discussion," and that "Mr. John Randolph knew he had won no laurel." Neither card was signed by the writer. Messrs. Coles and Garnett confessed that they had suppressed Mr. John Randolph's refusal to explain, and Mr. T. M. Randolph, considering the affair reopened, and doubtlesss viewing it as if no communications had passed, repaired to Richmond with a second, but no challenge came, and so the matter ended.

For the first part of his narrative, Mr. Garland has adopted the anonymous letter of "A Citizen," without stating that the report of the Intelligencer, "corrected by contemporaneous notes," was published in advance of its regular time for the avowed purpose of refuting such misrepresentations as those made by "A Citizen."

For the latter part of his narrative, he has adopted the statement of Mr. John Randolph, without stating that its correctness was denied by Mr. T. M. Randolph, and that in the all-important fact of the knowledge by the latter of Mr. John Randolph's refusal to explain, it turned out to be erroneous.

Yet the same files of newspapers which furnished one side of the story supplied the other. It is difficult therefore to acquit Mr. Garland of intentional misrepresentation, or at least of great negligence with reference to his facts. If he considered it worthy of recording, it was certainly worth recording correctly. I have endeavored in the above statement to do justice to all concerned.

Very truly, yours,

GEO. W. RANDOLPH.

A letter from President Jefferson to Mr. Duane, editor of the Aurora, March 22d, 1806, contains the following passages:

"That the expedition of Miranda was countenanced by me, is an absolute falsehood, let it have gone from whom it might; and I am satisfied it is equally so as to Mr. Madison. To know as much of it as we could was our duty, but not to encourage it."

This remark was called out by the following circumstances. Miranda having failed in securing the final coöperation of England in his South American projects, and having been expelled from France by Napoleon for alleged political intrigues, came to the United States. By the aid of Samuel J. Ogden and William S. Smith he fitted out a vessel at New York in 1806, with two or three hundred men, and a supply of arms to act against the government of Caraccas. The vessel sailed in

Smith to be

February. The Government ordered Ogden and prosecuted for a violation of the neutrality laws. They memorialized Congress to the effect that if they had committed an error they had been led into it "by the conduct of officers of the Executive Government, who now intended to bring upon the memorialists the penalties of the laws, to sacrifice their characters, fortunes, and liberty in expiation of their own errors, or to deprecate the vengeance of foreign governments, by offering the memorialists as a victim to their resentment," and they asked such relief " as the wisdom of Congress might think proper to grant." They also made various imputations against the judges before whom the legal proceedings against them had been instituted. Josiah Quincy, of Massachusetts, presented the paper containing these impudent allegations to the House, April 21, 1806; and he declared that "the information contained in some of those statements was corroborated by information known to some gentlemen on the floor-that the Executive had been advised of the fitting out of the Leander [Miranda's vessel] time enough to have prevented her sailing."

Alston, of North Carolina, declared that any member of Congress who possessed such information was as criminal as the President or Secretary of State was alleged to be. Jackson, of Virginia, pronounced Quincy's allegations "false" "and a base calumny." Quincy soon attempted to qualify his assertions, and Jackson contradicted the correctness of his explanation. Finally, Quincy utterly retracted, by saying that, "in making the remarks he had offered, he did not mean to criminate the Administration "that "if his words bore such a meaning, he withdrew them-such was not his intention."

Mr. Early offered a resolution that the charges in the memorial were "unsupported by any evidence which in the least degree criminated the Executive Government of this country "-that the memorial was presented "at a time and under circumstances insidiously calculated" to excite unjust suspicions-that it would be highly improper for Congress to interfere in a matter pending in the courts-and that the memorials be returned by the clerk "to those from whom they came." The previous question was ordered by a vote of seventy-four to fifteen.-The resolution was divided, and the first clause (exonerating the Administration) was carried by a vote of seventy-five against eight;

the second, characterizing the design of the memorial as “insidious," by a vote of seventy to thirteen; the third, declaring it improper for Congress to interfere, by a unanimous vote; the fourth, ordering the memorial to be returned to its makers, by a vote of seventy-one to fourteen. If we consider that about three-fourths of the opposition voted with the majority, or did not vote at all, and that less than half of it voted against any clause of the resolution, a more signal vindication of the Administration could not be conceived.

It might as well here be added, that Miranda's expedition ended in failure. With a little English assistance he took a town or two in Caraccas (or Venezuela) but the inhabitants did not favor him, and he was compelled to reembark. He repeated his attempt in 1810, and with more effect, but within a couple of years was defeated, taken a prisoner and sent to Spain, where he died after a four years' incarceration in the dungeons of the Inquisition.

Ogden and Smith were acquitted on their trial for a violation of the neutrality laws; and, as party accusations then ran, by the verdict of a jury packed for that object by the United States marshal, Swartwout, a special friend and adherent of Aaron Burr. Swartwout was turned out of office.

The President, in a letter, April 13th, pressing Wilson C. Nicholas to come into the Senate,' in the place of Giles, whose health had again failed, gave the following picture of the political state of that body:

"Giles's absence has been a most serious misfortune. A majority of the Senate means well. But Tracy and Bayard are too dexterous for them, and have very much influenced their proceedings. Tracy has been of nearly every committee during the session, and for the most part the chairman and of course drawer of the reports. Seven Federalists voting always in phalanx, and joined by some discontented Republicans, some oblique ones, some capricious, have so often made a majority as to produce very serious embarrassment to the public operations; and very much do I dread the submitting to them, at the next session, any treaty which can be made with either England or Spain, when I consider that five joining the Federalists can defeat a friendly settlement of our affairs."

1 He had a short time before (March 24th) pressed Mr. Nicholas to accept a joint commission with Armstrong and Bowdoin (our ministers to France and Spain) to attempt a friendly settlement of all outstanding questions with Spain. Colonel Nicholas's private affairs did not permit his acceptance, and the plan of a third commissioner was soon after dropped.

It was the question of the Presidential succession which produced all these embarrassments-though judging from the records of Congress they are very strongly stated in the preceding extract. We apprehend Mr. Jefferson wrote in a moment of unusual depression.

On the 18th of April the President addressed Mr. Leavitt Harris, American consul at St. Petersburg, inclosing a letter to the Emperor Alexander. It was in answer to one received from that monarch, dated 20th of August preceding. The President's communication was couched in that language of courtesy with which it is the custom to address such potentates, but its pith did not consist of compliments. It made an earnest and, though shrewd, manly appeal to the Czar to exert his powerful interposition in behalf of the rights of neutrals, in the general pacification of Europe, then anticipated in consequence of the death of Pitt and the accession of Fox to the English ministry.

At the same time the President accepted from Harris a bust of Alexander, with many complimentary expressions, and avowing that his respect for the latter induced him to depart from a rule which had hitherto known no exception, not to accept any present beyond "a book or a pamphlet, or some other curiosity of minor value, as well to avoid imputation on his motives of action as to shut out a practice susceptible of such abuse."1

Doubtless some diplomacy may be discovered in Mr. Jefferson's conduct on this occasion, but it is certain from his writings and recollected conversations that he felt a sincere regard for that young, virtuous, and able monarch, who, notwithstanding his possession of unlimited authority, entertained many of the liberal views in which he had been educated by La Harpe; and who exhibited them by his inquiries respecting our republican institutions and by a sort of personal overture to the President, which was understood to evince extraordinary respect for his abilities and character. This was the beginning of that friendly understanding between Russia and the United States, which has become traditionary in their policies.

The President's views of the political consequences of the death of Mr. Pitt, and his real feelings towards England, find a

1 This rule was rigidly adhered to until the close of his Administration. We get his ideas of what constitutes "minor value" in the fact that he refused to accept a carved ivory case, directing it to be returned to the donor.

clear exposition in a letter to the American minister to England, Mr. Monroe (May 4th):

"The late change in the ministry I consider as ensuring us a just settlement of our differences, and we ask no more. In Mr. Fox, personally, I have more confidence than in any man in England, and it is founded in what, through unquestionable channels, I have had opportunities of knowing of his honesty and his good sense. While he shall be in the administration, my reliance on that Government will be solid. We had committed ourselves in a line of proceedings adapted to meet Mr. Pitt's policy and hostility, before we heard of his death, which self-respect did not permit us to abandon afterwards; and the late unparalleled outrage on us at New York, excited such sentiments in the public at large, as did not permit us to do less than has been done. It ought not to be viewed by the ministry as looking towards them at all, but merely as the consequences of the measures of their predecessors, which their nation has called on them to correct. I hope, therefore, they will come to just arrangements. No two countries upon earth have so many points of common interest and friendship; and their rulers must be great bunglers indeed, if, with such dispositions, they break them asunder. The only rivalry that can arise is on the ocean. England may, by petty larceny thwartings, check us on that element a little, but nothing she can do will retard us there one year's growth. We shall be supported there by other nations, and thrown into their scale to make a part of the great counterpoise to her navy. If, on the other hand, she is just to us, conciliatory, and encourages the sentiment of family feelings and conduct, it cannot fail to befriend the security of both. We have the seamen and materials for fifty ships of the line, and half that number of frigates; and were France to give us the money, and England the dispositions to equip them, they would give to England serious proofs of the stock from which they are sprung, and the school in which they have been taught; and added to the efforts of the immensity of sea-coast lately united under one power, would leave the state of the ocean no longer problematical. Were, on the other hand, England to give the money, and France the dispositions to place us on the sea in all our force, the whole world, out of the continent of Europe, might be our joint monopoly. We wish for neither of these scenes. We ask for peace and justice from all nations; and we will remain uprightly neutral in fact, though leaning in belief to the opinion that an English ascendency on the ocean is safer for us than that of France."

And he added:

"We begin to broach the idea that we consider the whole Gulf Stream as of our waters, in which hostilities and cruising are to be frowned on for the present, and prohibited so soon as either consent or force will permit us. We shall never permit another privateer to cruise within it, and shall forbid our harbors to national cruisers. This is essential for our tranquillity and commerce."

"The late unparalleled outrage on us at New York," referred to by the President, consisted in the firing a shot by the commander of a British vessel of war (Captain Whitby, of the Leander), into an American coasting vessel, near Sandy Hook, by which